


The Mad Ones

by AhumokIo, feathers_and_cigarettes, pherryt



Category: Marvel, Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Blatant Jack Kerouac References, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied Sexual Content, Morally Grey Eddie Brock, Other, Post-Venom (Movie 2018), TSA shenanigans, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 11:13:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18915811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AhumokIo/pseuds/AhumokIo, https://archiveofourown.org/users/feathers_and_cigarettes/pseuds/feathers_and_cigarettes, https://archiveofourown.org/users/pherryt/pseuds/pherryt
Summary: “My fellow Mad One: will you come burn with me, deadly spider, or will you yawn and let others take your place across the stars? The move is yours.”When Anne and Dan finally get married, Eddie and Venom discover a plot that threatens their lives and set out to Hawaii to save their friends. What they discover is far more sinister than they expected and Eddie is forced to make a choice that will challenge his views on life and what it means to be a hero.





	The Mad Ones

**Author's Note:**

> It's here! My entry for the [Symbrock Big Bang!](http://symbrockbigbang.tumblr.com) This was my first Big Bang ever and I was really happy to be part of the fantastic Venom fandom and contribute to such a fantastic collection of writers and artists. 
> 
> Thanks to: first and foremost, my amazing artists [AhumokIo](http://1impulsivefloweruniverse.tumblr.com) and [Dragonpressgraphics (Pherryt on AO3)!](http://dragonpressgraphics.tumblr.com) \- I'm blown away by the work you two did and am so excited to share these along with my fic. Thanks to my amazing beta [Li-Izumi](http://li-izumi.tumblr.com) for your hard work polishing this fic and letting me bounce ideas off you, you are truly the best! Last but certainly not least, thanks to Anabeauce for letting me scream about this fic and for being my alpha reader and all your encouragement.
> 
> Links to art masterposts will be at the end.
> 
> Follow me on [tumblr!](http://feathers-and-cigarettes.tumblr.com)

In hindsight, attending a former fiancée’s wedding was probably a bad idea to begin with, no matter how well both of them got along as friends.

It wasn’t as if Eddie didn’t like Dan; quite the opposite, as a matter of fact, no matter how much Venom offered to eat his pancreas. He was thrilled beyond belief that Anne had found someone in her life that could make her as – okay, probably more – happy as she had been with Eddie. He held Dan to a high standard and so far, the guy seemed to have met and surpassed all of them.

Eddie’s own relationship status was pretty steady as it was, despite his current date being an alien symbiote wrapped around his body in the guise of a black suit jacket and bowtie. A bowtie that fucking _winked_ at Anne’s mother and cackled in Eddie’s head as the pompous old bat scrambled away during one of her lectures about how Eddie never tried to better himself. He was comfortable and, god forbid, _happy_ with his Other, just as Anne and Dan were happy with each other.

Really. Eddie was overjoyed for the newly married Dr. and Mrs. Dan Lewis. That didn’t make being at the wedding any easier on any level.

“Is that Eddie Brock?”

“Why on earth would Anne invite him?”

“I heard they were still speaking around a year ago but I didn’t think it was true.”

Grimacing, Eddie shouldered past the gossiping bridesmaids, offering each a weak smile as they peered down their noses at him.

_“Can we leave, Eddie? We are unhappy.”_

“Not yet, pal,” Eddie muttered under his breath, searching the tables for the candle with his name on it. “We gotta eat, toast the happy couple, maybe stick around for one dance, then we can bail.”

Venom shifted under Eddie’s skin, clearly displeased with the whole process. _“This is pointless. Humans have too many rituals.”_

“And everyone here agrees with you, trust me. It’s just something we humans do,” Eddie whispered as he made his way over to an empty chair. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise, just behave until we leave, all right?”

_“Fine.”_

“Eddie! This is a surprise; I thought I saw you at the ceremony but I couldn’t tell if it was you.” One of the men at the table, Mike something or other, stood and held out his hand as Eddie pulled out the chair by his name. “You’re looking good, man. How’s life been treating you?”

Eddie shook his hand politely before nodding to everyone at the table. He recognized most of them, all mutual friends of his and Anne’s when they had been dating. A few, like Mike, had reached out to him in his depression immediately following his firing and breakup, but Eddie had shunned them all, not bearing to be able to look their friends in the eye after his disgrace.

“Gettin’ by, you know. Got a few articles I’m working on, keepin’ busy,” Eddie replied vaguely, studying the two-item menu as if it held the answers to the universe.

“I heard you were really sick a year ago,” Mike’s girlfriend – Sandra – piped up. “How have you been? We were worried about you.”

So worried they hadn’t bothered to call, apparently.

Venom rumbled angrily, the symbiote coiling its form just under Eddie’s skin, threatening to break through. They had been more in tune to the other’s emotions over the past several months, and Venom’s bloodthirst typically coincided with Eddie’s mood swings.

Thank God at least Anne had foresight. A large chocolate bar peeked out from under Eddie’s napkin and Eddie breathed a sigh of relief. He grabbed the chocolate bar, smirking at the “For V” written on the wrapper, and peeled back a corner.

_“Aw. She appreciates us.”_

Stuffing a piece of chocolate into his mouth rather than answer, Eddie chewed hastily, trying to keep some semblance of the table manners he rarely practiced anymore.

“Yeah, I, uh,” he swallowed the chocolate, wiping his fingers on the napkin. “Sorry. We don’t really know what caused it, Dan said he’d never seen anything like it. But I’m doin’ much better now.”

Sandra’s eyes were full of false concern. “That’s so weird they can’t figure out what happened,” she said. “What changed?”

Eddie shrugged one shoulder. “I’m exercising more now. Diet change, whole nine yards.”

Climbing buildings and eating the heads off local criminals probably counted as a positive lifestyle change. Somewhere. Maybe.

“We’re glad to hear it,” Mike replied, and the rest of the table murmured their quiet agreement. “I’m really glad you and Anne stayed close. Dan’s talked about you too, makes you out to be a real hero in his life.”

Inside his head, Venom preened. _“That’s because we *are* heroes, Eddie.”_

“Dan’s a good guy, he was a big fan of some of my work before I, uh, lost my job. Annie’s a lucky gal,” Eddie said, his voice hollow even to his own ears.

“You should come to game night some time. Anne mentioned something about you being in a relationship again? You’re more than welcome to bring your girlfriend – was she not able to make it tonight?”

Eddie blinked. What the fuck was Anne thinking mentioning Venom to other people? Not that they had kept a strictly low profile in the city, but Eddie wasn’t sure how ‘yeah, I found my soulmate in an alien goo creature from outer space’ would go over with his former friends.

“Uh, no, no they couldn’t make it tonight,” Eddie stammered. “Something came up. Y’know how shit gets this time of the year.”

Sandra playfully leaned over and smacked Eddie’s shoulder, causing Venom to hiss angrily in Eddie’s mind. “Well, definitely bring her by sometime! She’s obviously been a good influence on you.”

_“Obviously.”_

Eddie reached up to his bowtie and gave it a hard tug.

_“Not fair!”_

Running his fingers apologetically across the silky ‘bowtie,’ Eddie smiled. “Yeah, we kinda both were in a bad place when we met, but we’ve been pretty good for each other, I think.”

The table made appropriate noises of approval and the subject was changed to the President’s latest blunders and musings on whether billionaire Avenger Tony Stark would ever decide to run for office. Eddie tuned them out, nibbling on the chocolate bar and listening with amusement as Venom argued the merits of getting the pasta over the steak. The symbiote had gotten better about Eddie eating meat – cooked meat, thank you very much – but it still bitched and moaned about the flavour and textures of dead flesh every chance it got. Pasta was a good compromise for the two of them, but a man needed a nice juicy burger every now and then.

Radiating its reluctance, Venom grumbled to itself and hissed, prodding Eddie’s stomach and making it churn.

Eddie mentally sent the symbiote a series of rude noises and pointedly stuffed the remainder of the chocolate bar into the pocket of his suit jacket. He winced as sharp teeth caught the tips of his fingers along with the candy. Maybe he should have gone to Anne’s tailor instead of choosing to cheap out and wear his shapeshifting partner after all.

A waiter appeared at Eddie’s elbow to take the table’s orders, raising an eyebrow at Eddie’s “and by rare I mean _rare_. Like show the cow the oven, scare it, and put it on a plate, thanks,” before disappearing back into the crowd.

“So, Eddie, now that you’re back into the news, what’re your thoughts on the new vigilante in town?” Mike asked after the waiter left.

A chill ran down Eddie’s spine that had everything and nothing to do with the symbiote. “Vigilante?” he said, his voice breaking on the first syllable. “What d’ya mean, vigilante?”

“In New York I guess you guys thought of them as super heroes, huh? Like the Avengers? Didn’t really stop your city from getting trashed,” Sandra piped up snippily.

Yeah, okay. The Avengers did have a habit of leaving cities in rubble, but if they hadn’t intervened, the city would be a hell of a lot worse than just in need of repair.

“C’mon, Eddie, you can’t tell me you haven’t seen him on the news? Massive guy, black suit, calls himself ‘Venom.’ He’s been taking out the trash for the past year, you had to have seen something on him,” Mike explained.

 _“Don’t worry, Eddie. Our secret is safe,”_ Venom rumbled, calming Eddie’s rising anxiety. A rush of warmth flowed through Eddie’s veins, enveloping him in a soothing embrace. _“No harm if they see us as long as they don’t connect to you.”_

Except if the wrong people figured out that the ‘vigilante’ was actually an alien… A shudder ran through Eddie at the thought of being forcibly separated from his Other, the symbiote helpless at the prodding hands of scientists with delusions of grandeur like Carlton Drake had.

_“Won’t ever separate us. We are one.”_

Eddie sipped his beer to hide his reaction to the rush of serotonin flooding his system and he sent appreciative thoughts back in response.

“Oh, yeah, Venom. Yeah, I’ve seen them – uh, _him_ – on the news,” Eddie said, setting his beer back down. “He seems like a pretty good guy to me. Can’t complain if he’s helping out low income neighbourhoods and taking out drug dealers and rapists, y’know?”

“Not really an excuse for murder,” the man to Eddie’s right, Ted, pointed out, shaking his head slowly. “He could be helping the police catch these people. You don’t see Steve Rogers going out and killing people.”

Eddie resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “The police don’t care about these neighbourhoods, no one does. Bodies dumped in garbage pits, homeless people freezing to death in front of stores – no one gives a shit in this fuckin’ city. It’s about time someone actually does.”

Irritation pricked at the back of Eddie’s skull. _That_ was the problem with San Francisco; people pretended to be humanitarians but when it came down to it, murderers and rapists dying were more horrific than good, helpless people who fell through the cracks. It sickened him.

The image of Ted frowning in disagreement blurred for a second and Eddie could acutely hear the man’s heart beating steadily in his chest. Blinking rapidly, he gave his head a little shake, forcing full control back from the symbiote. Venom didn’t typically attempt to come forth in public without Eddie’s consent, but the line between them got fuzzier every day.

_“His head would make a nice appetizer, Eddie. Not much hair to get caught in our teeth and his eyes look juicy.”_

It probably said something that shit like that didn’t immediately make Eddie want to vomit anymore.

“So are you going to be doing an exposé on the guy? I think that would be a great heavy hitter for you. You’ve been a little more light hearted after the Carlton Drake story,” Mike said, oblivious to Eddie’s mental squabble.

Underneath the table, Eddie tapped the cuff of his “jacket” and Venom, albeit begrudgingly, shifted to thread itself through Eddie’s fingers. Its hunger and irritation were distracting, but at least it was making an attempt to behave. That alone was worth giving up the remote later and indulging in whatever whims the symbiote had that evening.

“I dunno, maybe,” Eddie shrugged. “Haven’t really thought about it.”

Sandra smiled at him and it always unnerved Eddie the way some people’s smiles never reached their eyes. “I’m sure it’ll put you back on the map. Maybe it’ll even help police catch this guy.”

 _“Never,”_ Venom growled.

“Good thing that won’t be the angle I’ll be taking then,” Eddie replied, meeting Sandra’s gaze and letting Venom flash through his eyes for a split second.

The ever-timely waiter materialized with their food and thank God for small miracles. Venom redirected its hunger from their table-mates to the steak as Eddie dug into the meal, stuffing his mouth full of food to satiate his Other and keep himself from saying something that would likely get him thrown out or possibly arrested.

The steak was poorly seasoned but bloody enough to only earn mild complaints. Ignoring the raised eyebrows as he inhaled half the steak and all of his mashed potatoes, Eddie glanced over to the main table where Anne and Dan sat.

Anne was positively glowing. A broad smile had been on her face since she entered the reception and there was no sign of it fading any time soon. She looked the happiest Eddie had seen her in, well, over a year.

Dan was much more reserved, but there was no mistaking the sheer adoration in his eyes every time he looked at Anne. He barely tore his gaze away from her even as friends and family came up to greet the newlyweds and congratulate them. His best man’s speech had called him the luckiest man on the planet, and Eddie couldn’t disagree with him there.

 _“Second luckiest,”_ Venom’s voice piped up from the back of Eddie’s mind, a wave of affection rushing through him from his Other.

Heat rose to Eddie’s cheeks and he ducked his head, spearing the last chunk of steak. A feedback loop of _love_ sang through their bond and the last thing Eddie needed was to start getting maudlin at a table filled with people he only semi-tolerated.

Pleasantly full and symbiote at the very least semi-content, Eddie pushed his chair back from the table. “Gonna go give my love to the happy couple,” he said, gesturing toward Anne and Dan.

He got more than a few stares as he made his way across the room. News of the infamous Eddie Brock’s return to media had definitely been a headline in and of itself, but he was sure his appearance at his ex-fiancée’s wedding would be an even more intriguing story.

“Eddie!” Anne exclaimed as he approached the table. She gathered her dress and circled around behind Dan’s chair to greet him, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek. “You look – actually, you look fantastic.”

Eddie raised an eyebrow, lips quirking into a grin. “You were gonna say something just to be nice, weren’t you.”

“Well, yeah,” Anne snorted. “I forget you actually can clean up pretty well.”

“Gee, thanks, Annie.”

She laughed, that rich delighted laugh he missed hearing so much. “I’m assuming you have V to thank for the suit?”

Eddie stepped close to Anne as Venom extended an inky black tendril to lightly touch Anne’s cheek. Eyes appeared in the “bowtie” as the symbiote grinned a toothy grin before retracting back into Eddie’s body.

 _“Thank you for the chocolate, Annie,”_ Venom rumbled happily, Eddie relaying the message.

“You’re welcome. It wasn’t really fair everyone else got something to eat, so Dan and I wanted to make sure you were included.”

_“Dan is a good friend. We don’t want to eat his pancreas anymore.”_

Dan stood and shook Eddie’s hand, surprising him by drawing him in for a quick hug and slap on the back. “Thanks for coming, guys. It meant a lot to both of us that you were here,” Dan said, glancing briefly down to Eddie’s bowtie.

“We’re glad we could see it,” Eddie replied. “V says you’ve moved up from midnight snack to friend, so that’s about as high a compliment as you can get.”

Dan smiled happily as he addressed the bowtie. “I’m honoured, then, and happy you’ve finally forgiven me for the MRI.”

_“Forgiven is a strong word, but… you were trying to help Eddie and thought I was hurting him. We need friends like you.”_

Anne linked her arm through her new husband’s as Eddie translated. “Speaking of friends, I was hoping you’d get to reconnect with Mike and the game night crew, but was that a bit too hopeful?”

Eddie glanced over his shoulder at his table, grimacing slightly as he saw all the sets of eyes trained on them. “Yeah, probably. I had to pull a ‘my girlfriend’s in Canada’ move, though; what the hell were you thinking?”

At least Anne had the grace to look guilty. “I know, I know, I’m sorry. I had a lot of wine and somehow you got brought up and I mentioned Dan and I had been on a double date with you the night before.”

“She at least was sober enough to make up a believable story,” Dan added. “We left out the part about Venom eating the entire pot of pasta.”

_“Homemade tomato sauce is much tastier than canned, Eddie. Take notes.”_

“If you’re gonna keep insulting my cooking, I ain’t lettin’ you eat anyone later. Try me,” Eddie grumbled, poking at the symbiote until it snapped at his finger.

Anne smiled. “You two really are kind of adorable. In a weird ‘please give me zero details’ kind of way.”

_“Thank you, Annie.”_

“Hey!”

“Definitely zero details,” Dan agreed with a smirk.

Giving Eddie another quick hug and a scratch to the top of Venom’s “head,” Anne shot a dirty look at her mother before turning back. “Anyway, I’m just really happy you guys were here. Maybe we can all get together after the honeymoon and have a more low-key celebration? You two should be having an anniversary sometime soon, right?”

 _“Anniversary?”_ Venom shifted around Eddie’s head, prodding at his memories. _“Ah. Yes, we bonded a little over a year ago. Humans put value on this.”_

“Yeah, already passed, but we’re down for a double date party. We can go somewhere fancy and V can scare some waitresses,” Eddie replied.

Venom was silent. Normally the symbiote found great entertainment in scaring the general public, something Eddie rarely let it indulge in, but it remained lost in its own thoughts, even retreating behind the mental barrier it and Eddie kept so they had some semblance of privacy.

Confused, Eddie lightly nudged the symbiote where he could feel it hovering in his mind.

_“Just thinking; not to worry, my love.”_

Dan’s brow furrowed and he peered at Eddie closely. “You still with us, Eddie? Everything okay?”

Eddie gave his head a little shake, content to leave his Other to its musings. “Yeah, we’re good, sorry. Talking mentally is just kind of a habit now, I guess.”

Nodding with relief, Dan clapped him on the back once more. Poor bastard probably was constantly looking out for symptoms that Eddie’s body was shutting down, despite the (frequent) tests to the contrary.

“You don’t have to stick around if you don’t want to, Annie and I figured you’d want to bail early. I wish we could too, but we still have to go visit with dear Aunt Doris,” Dan sighed.

On the far side of the table, Anne’s mother was glaring daggers at Eddie and whispering furiously to her husband. Definitely time to bail before things got hairy.

Giving one last hug to Anne and an awkward one to Dan, Eddie congratulated them again before waving cheekily at Anne’s mother. More than a few pairs of eyes were on him as he made his way to the exit. It felt good – some of those eyes were envious, some intrigued, some outright disdainful, but Eddie was finally getting _noticed_ again.

It was a heady feeling of power, being noticed. The Brock Report had always been his way of using that power to help the people who weren’t noticed, who were passed over time and again, the people everyone else forgot about.

Now, with his Other, _Venom_ was that power.

Their claws sank deep into the stone of the ruined church rooftop, the rock sliding harmlessly through the symbiote’s constantly shifting skin.

Settling on their perch, Venom dug their rear claws in and sighed comfortably, looking out over the lights of the still bustling city. Despite their best efforts to locate the contrary, most of the citizens of their corner of San Francisco seemed to be behaving, some very aware of the dark shadow that bounded silently over their heads as they went about their evening routines.

_“Sorry, love. Was hoping we’d find you a real meal tonight,”_ Eddie apologized, tucked safely into the back of their shared mind.

“We tried,” Venom replied dismissively. “Not every hunt will be successful and that will make the next one that much more enticing.”

 _“You wanna head over to the harbour and go fishing?”_ Fish had made an acceptable substitute when prey was on the scarcer side. Eddie had warned the symbiote of the dangers of feeding off livestock, which baffled it ( _“they end up as food anyway, Eddie!”_ ) and it was starting to get the concept of domestic animals as valued and loved pets. Fish was a good compromise.

“Why did we not do anything for our anniversary?”

The abrupt change in subject threw Eddie momentarily. He tried to follow Venom’s thought train but he wasn’t nearly as good at the whole telepathy business as his Other. _“Our… what? You’re still focused on that?”_

“Yes. Humans place significance on time, probably because you have so little of it. You celebrated your anniversaries with Anne, with your other romantic partners. Why did we not celebrate it?” Venom asked irritably, flexing their claws with a huff.

_“I dunno, maybe because I was too busy being scared out of my fuckin’ mind to jot down the date when we met?”_

Venom clacked their jaws in annoyance, growling softly.

Eddie sighed. The symbiote was like a dog with a bone once it got fixated on something. If he didn’t sort out any perceived insult now, he’d be woken up for the next week to infomercials or Venom texting rude things to everyone in his contact list.

Sometimes the whole ‘complete and total mental bond’ deal wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

_“I’m sorry, okay? I honestly didn’t remember the exact date, and yeah, I totally could’ve looked it up but I figured you would think it was stupid like you think just about every other human tradition is.”_

“You suck at apologies,” Venom grumbled.

_“And I apologise for that too.”_

“Dick,” Venom snorted. “You’re lucky I like you. I could have eaten your organs long ago. Made your brain haemorrhage. Left you as a hollow husk in our apartment.”

Eddie grinned, twisting their mouth in what had to be a horrific smile to anyone unfortunate enough to see them. _“You keep sayin’ that but every time we run out of tater tots you’re all sunshine and cuddles,”_ he shot back, his amusement pushing at the symbiote’s irritation.

“Just means I like tater tots more than you,” Venom said. The muscles in their legs coiled and they sprang forward toward the adjacent rooftop. A thick tendril extended from their arm and dug a claw into the roof, swinging them forward effortlessly.

Eddie held back his retort as Venom expertly maneuvered them across the city, still nervous even after all this time that if he broke the symbiote’s control they’d plummet to their doom. Just another one of his many nightmares that he’d really rather not be based in reality.

The water over the harbour was calm, the scent of the saltwater distinctive and calming filtered through the symbiote’s senses. Movement in the water attracted their gaze, everything else dull and blurry. It had taken Eddie a while to get used to the symbiote’s vision: a true predator that easily spotted heat and movement above all else. Their sense of smell was much more keen in comparison, and Eddie could feel them honing in on their prey.

Their powerful muscles bunched as they dove into the water, snatching the fish in their claws and tearing into its flesh. The fish was devoured before they even leapt out of the water and back onto the overlook, Venom’s contentment and euphoria even at the small hunt leaking through their bond.

 _“Happy now?”_ Eddie asked as they settled in the grass, just far enough away from the edge of the overlook to not be able to see over it. Venom was usually outwardly derisive of Eddie’s fear of heights, but the little things made all the difference.

Warm affection flowed through their bond and Eddie was briefly treated to memories of past hunts on Klyntar, of swimming through murky water and zeroing in on prey.

“It will do. We can have more chocolate when we get home,” Venom replied, coiling its consciousness around and through Eddie’s in its version of a mental hug. “We have seven more seasons of Chopped to catch up on.”

_“I did say you could have the remote. At least you’re off your Family Feud kick.”_

“Those people did not deserve publicity. A child would have done better.”

_“Welcome to American game shows, love. They’re just there for entertainment, not education.”_

Venom shifted their bulk, still fixated on watching the horizon over the water. Some things about Earth it couldn’t get enough of, and watching the sky from the harbour overlook was one of them.

“Food Network is far more entertaining. My people would be enthralled by an entire section of entertainment devoted to food. Humans may do many things backwards, but the Food Network is a genius concept.”

_“Sure. Crowning jewel of the human race. Not thousands of years of art or music; definitely the Food Network.”_

A buzz broke through their banter, the feeling weird under the symbiote’s skin and against Eddie’s.

“It’s Anne,” Venom said, retreating back into Eddie’s body, leaving him shivering slightly in the cool ocean breeze.

Digging his cell phone out of the pocket of his jeans, Eddie swiped his thumb across the screen to answer.

“Hey, Annie; what’re you doin’ wasting time calling us for? It’s your wedding night,” Eddie said, smiling as the symbiote moulded itself into a hoodie.

“We’re on our way to the airport, but my mother decided at the last second that she couldn’t watch Mr. Belvedere,” Anne replied, annoyance creeping into her voice. “Would you two mind watching him for us? I know it’s last minute but everyone else I know is allergic.”

Feeling Venom’s agreement, Eddie scratched it absently under the chin as its head snaked into being over his shoulder. “Yeah, that should be fine. I’d say I’ve missed that fuzzball, but I really haven’t.”

“We promise not to eat the cat,” Venom added into the phone.

“Great! And, uh, that’s… reassuring. I guess. The spare key is in a magnet under the railing.” Anne broke off, Dan’s voice audible in the background. She said something muffled in response and then continued. “He should go into his carrier just fine and I left everything by the door. I really can’t thank you guys enough; you know how he is being boarded at the vet’s.”

Yeah, Eddie remembered. Nothing like being banned from three vets in the span of a year, the little shithead.

“We’ll head over and pick him up,” Eddie said reassuringly. “I’ll text you pictures every day and you can even Facetime him if you feel like it.”

“He’s a cat, Eddie.”

Eddie grinned, winking at Venom’s confused head tilt. “Enjoy your night, Annie; don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“That’s… a very small list, Eddie. Thanks.”

Venom melted back into Eddie’s skin, rooting around in Eddie’s mind for some memory or another. Eddie had long since stopped trying to follow his Other’s train of thought when it got curious about something. For the most part, they were on the same page with thoughts and feelings blending freely between them, but alien was alien no matter how closely their bond ran.

Hanging up the phone and shoving it back in his pocket, Eddie mentally poked at the symbiote, distracting it from whatever memory had grabbed its attention.

_“To Annie’s?”_

“Yep. Good thing we’ve got a couple sets of hands to carry everything back home.”

Warmth once more enveloped Eddie as Venom shifted forward, the raw power and strength as always shooting a bit of adrenaline down their spine.

Turning back toward the lights of the city, Venom propelled them forward and off in the direction of Anne’s apartment.

Mr. Belvedere, it turned out, was still not a fan of Eddie and even less of a fan of Venom.

Eddie sighed and crouched down, holding out a bag of Kitty Krunchies and trying to peer into the space between the wall and the sofa. “C’mon, you little shit. You love this stuff, just come out here.”

Yellow eyes glittered balefully at Eddie from the shadows and Mr. Belvedere hissed.

“Jesus. We’re gonna need to move the couch. V, can you block off the other side?”

Off to Eddie’s side, the television switched on and the familiar voice of Alton Brown reached his ears.

Eddie pinched the bridge of his nose and glared over the arm of the couch. “Dude. Really? You can’t fuckin’ help me for five goddamn minutes?”

The symbiote was partially coiled in the centre of the couch, the remote clutched in one inky tendril and its large eyes glued to the television. It bared its teeth at Eddie and made a decent approximation of flipping him the bird with another appendage. “We haven’t seen this one yet and you’re taking too long getting this creature in the cage.”

Eddie crossed his arms on the arm of the couch and rested his chin on them. “Y’know what would be faster?” he said slowly, voice high with false patience. “If you turned the fuckin’ tv off and helped me out here.”

Spitting an irritated hiss in Eddie’s direction, Mr. Belvedere took advantage of the distraction and darted past Eddie and into the bedroom.

“Humans have the oddest taste in companion species.”

Eddie glared at the symbiote and received a smirk in response. “Says the fuckin’ parasite. Shut the tv off and gimme a hand.”

Venom snarled at the insult and surged forward, snapping its jaws a hair’s breadth away from Eddie’s face.

A year ago Eddie would have probably pissed himself. Now it took a lot to even remotely intimidate him. He poked Venom’s snout and pushed until it melted back into the rest of its mass covering Eddie’s t-shirt.

 _“You are only slightly tolerable today,”_ came Venom’s irritated rumble at the back of Eddie’s mind.

A pang of guilt struck him. It wasn’t Venom’s fault that Eddie was stressed and having stupid self-worth issues – regardless of whether they were justified or not. He was keyed up too much because of the stupid wedding and it wasn’t fair to Venom to take his frustration out on it.

“I know. I’m sorry, and as I said, I’ll make it up to you when we get home, but in order for me to _do_ that, we need to get the stupid fuzzball,” Eddie sighed, hauling himself to his feet.

Of all the places Eddie didn’t want to go, Anne and Dan’s bedroom ranked pretty high up there. It was a new apartment so at least it didn’t hold all the same nostalgia that Eddie’s old bedroom would have, but it felt like trespassing. A glimpse into a life he could have had.

 _“Would you rather have had that life, Eddie?”_ Venom’s voice was quiet, a hint of concern and hurt bleeding through.

Eddie stopped just outside the doorway. He was an idiot. Of fucking course Venom would take Eddie’s emotional turmoil as the symbiote only being a consolation prize. A wave of nausea coursed through Eddie’s stomach, a mixture of both his own shame and Venom’s nerves. Hurting his Other was the _last_ thing he had wanted to do, and he was so accustomed to there being no secrets between them, he’d assumed it would take his anxiety and self-loathing for what it was – guilt over hurting Anne and his not handling rejection well. Add in his intense feelings for Anne and Eddie’s thoughts on the subject were a minefield of emotions.

One thing was certain though: he was _happy_ with Venom. There was no comparison between the two, he loved them both equally, but differently now. Venom was his everything, his love, his best friend, his partner, his saviour and confidant. Nothing would ever take its place.

Lifting his hand to encourage the symbiote to materialize, Eddie pushed all those thoughts toward Venom’s presence in his mind.

“Hey, no, no I wouldn’t,” Eddie said softly, dropping the bag of Kitty Krunchies to stroke the smooth skin of Venom’s head as it appeared. “You know how happy you make me, love. Nothing will ever come between us.”

He rested his forehead against Venom’s. “Human emotions are just… complicated. I don’t even understand ‘em half the time. Maybe it’s just me being selfish but it’s not even really about Annie, it’s more my shame at failing her. I love Annie, I always will. But it’s _you_ I’m in love with – you get that?”

Venom let out a rough purr and shut its eyes, one tendril materializing to rub the nape of Eddie’s neck. “A truly idiotic species,” it murmured. “Such complex emotions.”

“Yeah, you like it though,” Eddie grinned, pressing a kiss to Venom’s snout. “I’ll get my shit together. I promise.”

Venom headbutted Eddie’s chin affectionately before sinking back under his skin. _“We will get our shit together. You are never alone, my love.”_

Bolstered by the wave of _love_ and _mine_ and adoration coming from his Other, Eddie picked the treat bag back up and pushed open the door to Anne and Dan’s bedroom.

He was not prepared, however, for what he saw.

Venom surged forward, immediately going into a defensive crouch and flexing their claws as they quickly took in the ransacked bedroom. There was a lingering scent of cigarette smoke in the air but aside from Mr. Belvedere, they couldn’t see any evidence of any other being in the room.

Growling softly, Venom righted the tipped over desk chair and looked at the emptied filing cabinet by the desk. All the contents were gone, all Anne’s client files and confidential information. Next to the desk, the closet had been turned inside out and the small safe door was open in the back corner.

_“Jesus fucking Christ.”_

“Eddie. Why would someone looking to steal things leave credit cards or a laptop behind?”’

They looked closer at the safe, hunching awkwardly even in the normally spacious walk-in closet. Two credit cards lay untouched in the back corner, along with a safe deposit box. Reaching in, they pulled the box out and carefully opened the lid.

Inside were several documents: Dan’s bank information, a few transcripts from Anne’s Stanford days, all highly valuable information for a thief. The final item was a manila folder, emptied of all documents and the cover partially torn. The tab read “BROCK, EDWARD A.”

Venom hissed and they whirled toward the desk, the symbiote shifting back to give Eddie the use of his smaller human hands and sharper eyesight. Rage and panic warred within them as they pressed buttons frantically on the laptop to wake it.

_“Don’t like this, Eddie! Those were our medical records!”_

Eddie shifted their bulk as he quickly typed in the password he still, somewhat guiltily, remembered for Anne’s laptop.

“Yeah, this ain’t a regular robbery, that’s for fuckin’ sure,” he muttered, scanning the list of files as the screen cleared. The folder containing all Anne’s information on the Life Foundation was open, all the testimonies and legal documents from the families of the victims of Drake’s twisted experiments laid open for anyone with a flash drive to copy.

“Sonofabitch,” Eddie muttered as he clicked over to Anne’s opened Gmail account. The itinerary for her and Dan’s flight was open, complete with hotel check in instructions for their luxurious Hawaii honeymoon.

His vision blurred as his Other enveloped him completely once more. They rose with sinuous grace and headed quickly toward the door just as movement caught their eye.

Snapping one tendril out, they lifted a stunned Mr. Belvedere by the scruff and brought him up to eye level.

_“We gotta take him with us. We can drop him off with Mrs. Chen or something, but we can’t leave him here.”_

The cat flattened his ears and hissed, one paw flashing out and swatting at Venom’s tongue as they scented the air.

Their mouth twisted into a rictus grin and they gingerly carried Mr. Belvedere over and deposited the snarling cat into the carrier.

“I like this creature, it has no fear,” Venom remarked, gently stroking the soft fur through the bars of the carrier with one claw and grinning more as Mr. Belvedere bit them. “Do we want speed or discretion?”

_“Speed. I’ll bet you a month’s worth of remote privileges it’s one of Drake’s old Life Foundation cronies. We have to get to Annie and Dan before they do!”_

Carefully securing the carrier under one arm, Venom extended more limbs to grab the bag of food and litter and the litter box. They wedged their bulk out the front door and quickly checked that no one was in the immediate vicinity before scaling quickly up the building and launching themselves back toward their neighbourhood and Mrs. Chen’s shop.

Five am flights to Honolulu from San Francisco International were not fucking cheap. Eddie had to withdraw a portion of his meagre savings account and dip into the stash of cash they had taken off a drug kingpin earlier that month. He’d been intending to distribute most of the money to the families of the victims, but playing hero didn’t exactly keep the electric bill or the rent paid.

Venom played damage control with Eddie’s rapidly rising heart rate and blood pressure for most of the night, even trying to distract Eddie with the promise of sex to take his mind off the looming terror.

The downside to sharing all emotions with your partner in a feedback loop was it wasn’t limited to just the good emotions. Eddie’s anxiety and stress only fed Venom’s and the symbiote’s general bafflement (and sometimes amusement) with human reproductive habits wasn’t exactly conducive to romance when fear was present.

So they lay awake for what seemed like an eternity, the tv providing white noise and Venom and Eddie intertwined as close as they could under the thin cotton sheet.

Eddie found even though he could physically be _one_ with his Other, sometimes there was no substitute for having a physical being he could hold onto or be held by. Venom wrapped itself like a blanket over Eddie’s body, its chin resting on top of Eddie’s head and occasionally nuzzling into his hair.

He _could_ have had Venom knock him out for a power nap – god knows he could use one and Venom would likely benefit from the break in anxiety - but Eddie couldn’t bring himself to sleep while Anne and Dan were in danger.

“Sleep on the plane, Eddie. We are no use to Annie or Dan if we can’t keep our eyes open.”

Eddie buried his face further into Venom’s snakelike neck. “You can keep your eyes open even if I can’t keep mine. We’ve gone longer without sleep.”

Venom huffed in disagreement, the sound reverberating through its skin. “The last time we went a long time without sleep was when we fought Riot. We won but we would have had an easier time if you were not exhausted.”

“You were pretty exhausted too, if I remember right. Mister ‘Sleep is for the weak.’”

Tightening its coils around Eddie’s torso, Venom snorted. “Your exhaustion affects me more now that our bond has strengthened. There is not so much _Eddie_ or _Venom_ as there is _we_. Your weaknesses are now our weaknesses.”

Eddie remained silent, trying not to run through all the scenarios in which Anne and Dan were murdered before he could even get to Hawaii.

 _“We will save them, Eddie,”_ Venom’s deep purr reverberated through Eddie’s mind, the imaginary horrors shifting to the memories of past saved victims. _“We are heroes.”_

“We can’t let Annie die because of our fuckup. The Life Foundation only knows about her because of me. And Dan was only tryin’ to do the right thing by helping us.”

_“Annie is brave and a fighter. She knew what she was getting into when she took me to rescue you. Dan is a good person, and neither will die on our watch.”_

Eddie sighed, attempting to relax into Venom’s mental and physical embrace. His Other was wholly confident they would succeed, happy to see them as protectors of San Francisco despite its initial derision of being a ‘super hero.’

Nothing since the fight with Drake and Riot had held this much risk, had so much at stake. Together, he and Venom were strong, but every hero’s story held tragedy.

Eddie could not let this be theirs.

There wasn’t enough coffee in the world to deal with TSA agents at quarter past four in the morning. Eddie was pretty sure he looked as shitty as he felt and his constant nervous fidgeting was drawing all sorts of unwanted attention.

Venom remained completely concealed within Eddie, neither daring to test the TSA detectors by having the symbiote pose as Eddie’s clothing. Even hidden, it still remained on high alert and on the lookout for any possible danger. They worked well this way, their minds open to one another in a constant flow of communication, their senses primed and ready to jump into a fight at any moment.

Too bad TSA agents were trained to be suspicious of jumpy and shifty behaviour coming from scruffy looking reporters wearing a hoodie, baseball cap, and sunglasses indoors.

_“Told you we should have just eaten the guards and snuck into cargo.”_

“Shut up,” Eddie hissed.

The TSA agent raised an eyebrow and paused in his pat-down of Eddie’s left thigh. “Excuse me, sir?”

Great. Now they thought he was crazy in addition to suspicious.

“I’m going to need you to come with me, sir,” a second agent said, stepping out from behind the conveyor belt. He held Eddie’s satchel in his hand and beckoned him forward.

Eddie held up his hands. “Look, is there any other way I can get through? I have a flight to catch and it’s kind of an emergency.”

_“Behind us, Eddie. Officer with a dog.”_

The TSA agent looked like he was about to roll his eyes. “Sir, everyone here has a flight to catch. If you would come with me, things will be easier and faster.”

The security officer stepped into view just inside Eddie’s peripheral vision, the big black German Shepherd at his side scenting the air before growling softly. The officer let his hand casually drop to the firearm at his waist.

They couldn’t make a scene, not here. Not with so much at stake. Not making a scene left two options: go with the TSA agent or risk the dog catching more of their alien scent.

Dogs tended to react badly to Eddie once they got a good whiff.

Forcing a weak smile onto his face, Eddie nodded to the TSA agent. “Yeah, you’re right, I’ll go with you. No problem.”

The agent managed a sarcastic, “Thank you, sir,” and gestured Eddie ahead of him toward one of the private pat down rooms.

Taking care to keep his hands out of his pockets, Eddie entered the room and glanced around. A metal desk and two metal folding chairs took up most of the space, and a security camera watched from the corner of the ceiling.

Eddie deliberately avoided looking at the camera and shifted to keep his back to it. A glimmer of a plan formed in his mind, one that Venom immediately picked up on. It was a shaky plan, one that had an equally good chance of getting them arrested, but it was that or nothing.

Taking a step backwards toward the camera, Eddie smiled disarmingly at the TSA agent and raised his hands. “Whatever you need to do to get me through, I’ll cooperate. Family emergency.”

He felt Venom slink several thin tendrils through his skin and move along the crease in the corner of the wall, slowly making its way up toward the security camera.

The agent dropped Eddie’s satchel onto the floor and stepped into Eddie’s space. “If you could please remove your hat and glasses, sir. Set them down on the table please.”

“Sure. No prob,” Eddie replied, removing his baseball cap and setting it on the table. He took his sunglasses off just as he felt Venom sink into the security camera.

_“Camera is disabled, fifteen seconds. Go!”_

Eddie broadened his smile at the agent, letting his Other rise to the forefront. “Sorry about this, but I’m _really_ in a rush,” he apologised as he lashed out, arm morphing into a thick black mass that covered the agent’s face, cutting off his airways.

The agent dropped to the floor after a second or two of struggling to breathe. Eddie quickly checked his pulse and dragged his unconscious body under the desk. Hopefully he wouldn’t wake up until well after their departure.

Grabbing his hat and sunglasses, he quickly put them back on and slung his satchel over his shoulder. He opened the door and casually walked back out, Venom dropping its hold on the security camera as soon as Eddie crossed the threshold.

_“We need to get on that plane, Eddie. Won’t be long before someone finds that man!”_

“Flight should be boarding any minute.” Eddie pulled the brim of his hat low and pretended to talk into his phone as he moved past the security guards and toward their terminal.

He ducked into the men’s room and into a stall, shucking his hoodie and stuffing it and his hat into his satchel. Once the TSA agent was discovered, security would be looking for them and the less he stood out, the better.

“Change of clothing?” Eddie whispered.

Immediately, Venom spread itself over Eddie’s torso, morphing into the guise of a leather jacket.

“Thanks, love,” Eddie said with a grin as they exited the restroom.

_“We look good. More importantly, we don’t look like we did when we arrived.”_

“Perfect.”

Boarding went smoother than finding the correct terminal – Eddie walked past it three times before Venom started making snide comments. They ended up in the last boarding group and stuck in an aisle seat next to the lavatory, but at least they had made it onto the plane without causing any major public scenes.

The flight was a direct one, five and a half hours to Honolulu. The double layover flight would have been cheaper but every second they delayed was another second Anne and Dan were in danger.

Eddie’s stomach churned at the thought. The stress definitely wasn’t helping his indigestion; Venom’s near constant background hum of _“hungry”_ was a mantra in his head and Eddie felt guilty about that too. He had been too anxious to eat since discovering the invasion at Anne’s apartment and hadn’t eaten since the wedding, far longer than he’d gone without eating since joining with the symbiote.

 _“Eat when we take off, Eddie, then sleep. We can only run so far on adrenaline,”_ Venom purred in his head, spreading a small tendril across the back of Eddie’s hand to lace through his fingers.

The plane bounced along the runway as they gained speed for takeoff and Eddie resolutely turned his attention toward the flight attendant gesturing to the emergency exits. Anxiety, hunger, exhaustion, and now the creeping fear of heights was starting to overwhelm him. He tightened his fingers around Venom, shutting his eyes and letting his Other soothe him.

The captain’s voice droned on, fading into white noise. Eddie could feel himself drifting, his eyelids getting heavier as, too late, he realized Venom had upped his body’s production of dopamine and serotonin.

“Fuckin’ parasite,” Eddie slurred as blackness overtook him.

_“Hungry.”_

Eddie jerked awake to Venom’s insistent complaint reverberating in his head. Something pressed against the side of his face as he turned his head and he grabbed at it, instinctively taking a step back in his own head to let his Other come forth.

“It’s okay, young man!” a voice at his side said. “I had the flight attendants bring you a pillow.”

Eddie blinked, pushing his sunglasses up on his head as Venom snickered at him.

“I thought you’d end up with a crick in your neck falling asleep like that,” the elderly man in the seat next to him continued. “Trust me, a stiff neck’s the last thing you want on a Hawaiian vacation!”

“Uh. Thanks,” Eddie replied, rubbing a hand over his eyes blearily. “How long have I been asleep?”

The man settled back against his seat and gestured out the window. “Entire flight! Don’t worry, I don’t mind the snoring. My ex-wife snored loud enough to wake the dead, I tell you.”

Pointedly looking away from the window, Eddie shifted in his seat and groaned as the knots in his back made themselves known. He twisted, spine popping as he felt the plane start to make its descent.

_“Food, Eddie.”_

Eddie’s stomach rumbled embarrassingly loudly and he shot a guilty look at his seatmate before digging around in his satchel for his emergency stash of chocolate and protein bars. He was starving, but any previous guilt he had about not eating faded as he remembered what made him sleep in the first place.

 _“You needed rest. Your nerves were starting to affect us and we cannot afford to not be on our game. Now we need food,”_ Venom hissed, his Other’s mental voice cranky with its hunger.

Unwrapping the protein bar, Eddie devoured it ravenously, his hunger amplified by his Other’s. A second bar would get them through until he could find a breakfast sandwich or something at the airport.

If they made it through their mission alive and managed to protect Anne and Dan, maybe he and Venom could go for a hunt in the clear Hawaiian waters. God knew they could use a vacation of their own – maybe a late anniversary gift? Exotic fish, swimming in the coral reefs, and possible bloodshed. Definitely the perfect anniversary for the life Eddie Brock had found himself in.

_“That is a good idea. But can we get hash browns instead of breakfast sandwiches? The ham is… rubbery. And too dead.”_

Eddie swallowed the last of the second protein bar and nodded. They couldn’t afford to rent a car, but Eddie was used to traveling on foot. Thankfully Anne and Dan’s hotel wasn’t too far from the airport – and it would be an even shorter trip if they took rooftops. Riskier, but faster than walking.

The plane bounced as it settled down onto the tarmac. Venom slipped through Eddie’s fingers once more on the landing and Eddie was too relieved at being on the ground once more to be embarrassed by his fear of heights.

He supposed Venom was probably used to it, being a seasoned intergalactic traveller and all.

 _“My species is blind and deaf in our natural form, relying only on scent, touch, and heat to guide our way to our hosts and prey,”_ Venom commented. _“When I first left Klyntar and saw the stars… There are no words in any language to adequately describe the feeling. One day we will see the stars, Eddie.”_

Smiling, Eddie briefly pressed a kiss to his jacket sleeve, feeling it pulse to life in response under his lips.

“Sap,” he teased under his breath as he unbuckled his seatbelt. He slung his satchel over his shoulder, groaning as he stood and stretched his stiff muscles.

“You enjoy your trip, young man! I hope you find what you’re looking for here in Hawaii,” the elderly man said cheerfully, his smile crinkling the corners of his eyes behind his glasses.

Eddie waved, returning the smile as he shuffled along the aisle behind the other passengers to the exit. Weird guy, but at least he didn’t have to sit next to a screaming baby or some emotional support alligator or something.

They managed to disembark without incident, taking a minute to duck into the men’s room to change their appearance again. Eddie didn’t think security in Honolulu had been notified about the TSA incident in San Francisco, but it wasn’t a risk he was willing to take. It was far too warm with Venom’s leather jacket impersonation, so a simple black t-shirt and jeans with sunglasses would blend in.

According to Eddie’s phone, there was a McDonald’s within walking distance from the airport. They needed to fuel up, then start their stakeout of Anne and Dan’s hotel. Eddie wasn’t sure exactly how we were going to find whoever was responsible for the break in, but his and Venom’s combined instincts were rarely wrong these days.

The early morning walk was a blessed change from his usual one in San Francisco, the weather warm but not yet stifling. The ocean air was clearer than down by their usual spot at the harbour and Eddie was able to relax for a moment, turning his face to the Oahu sun before pulling open the door to McDonald’s.

Entering directions to Anne’s motel into his phone, Eddie stuffed a hash brown into his mouth and chewed noisily.

“Ok, according to Anne’s email, they’re staying at The Equus, about twenty minutes from here. Think you can behave if I call a Lyft?”

Venom hissed and trailed down Eddie’s arm, tracing his tattoos. It shoved its head into the McDonald’s bag and made quick work of the remaining hash browns before withdrawing back to Eddie’s t-shirt.

_“Now I can, yes.”_

“Wonderful.”

Eddie quickly tapped in his info for a Lyft and went up to the counter to order another breakfast sandwich – minus the ham - while they waited. Taking a bite, he sent a quick text to Anne, making up some story about Mr. Belvedere not liking Venom. Not a lie, just not the current truth. Hopefully cat updates would be enough to keep her off their trail and in the dark about the danger she currently was in.

Eddie didn’t want to see her and Dan hurt, but he _really_ didn’t want to be responsible for ruining their honeymoon.

Venom alerted him to their Lyft driver pulling up and, inhaling the last of the breakfast sandwich, Eddie left the restaurant with a strict warning to his Other not to play with the windows.

Four hours and one power nap later, Venom managed to catch Anne’s scent and follow it from the hotel to the resort’s private beach. They had slunk around the hotel all morning, hoping to catch sight of either Anne or Dan on one of the balconies, but in true honeymoon fashion, the newlyweds had chosen to stay in their room.

Thankfully, there wasn’t any evidence of anyone having followed them to Hawaii either. No one seemed to pay Anne or Dan any mind on the beach, and the only people whose gazes lingered on Eddie were decidedly more lustful in nature.

 _“We should just tell them we’re here,”_ Venom grumped irritably. _“All this sneaking around, it’s pointless. We should be drawing out our enemy quickly so we can go home.”_

Eddie gently scratched one of solid black ‘tattoos’ covering his bare torso. How better to hide a symbiote than in plain sight? He kept his sunglasses on and hoped Venom altered his tattoo patterns enough that he wouldn’t be immediately recognizable if Anne happened to glance their way.

“We can get away with bulldozing criminals in San Francisco, but this ain’t our city, love,” he muttered, pretending to flip through the Oahu Vacation Guide he snagged from the hotel lobby. “We’re sure as shit not ruining Annie’s honeymoon and we really don’t need the news reporting that we’ve been spotted here.”

Venom growled softly. _“Fine. But we are eating whomever is trying to hurt Anne or us, whether or not they were sent by the remainder of the Life Foundation.”_

“Deal,” Eddie agreed, glancing back over to where Dan was picking his way back across the beach with two mixed drinks in his hands.  

Sinking back into his own mind, Eddie let Venom partially come forth behind the safety of their sunglasses and the magazine. They scented the air, long tongue flicking out to analyze the subtler nuances.

Their skin along Eddie’s tattoos fed more information to their brain, picking up shifts in the light Hawaiian breeze and the electromagnetic pulse of nearby living beings. A wider picture formed, blending Eddie’s sharper sight and hearing with the symbiote’s sense of smell and almost infrared vision.

Someone stumbled by their chair – female, young, partially intoxicated from the stench of the alcohol that filled their pores. Pheromones poured off her skin in waves, strong enough to taste on her breath as she leaned in dangerously close to their face.

“Hey, nice tattoos,” the woman said, the quick movement of her tongue as it darted out to lick her lips catching their eye as she looked them up and down appreciatively. Her pulse quickened, her scent overbearing with the cloying mix of booze and arousal.

“You here alone?”

Eddie managed to wrench control from his Other just as their hand snapped out to grab the woman’s wrist, preventing her from touching them. Their senses faded as their vision sharpened back into human range, but the symbiote’s possessive jealousy remained.

“No, we are not alone,” Eddie growled, his voice coming out several octaves lower than usual.

The woman stumbled backward, wrenching her wrist out of his grasp. Her eyes were wide and she murmured an apology as she beat a hasty retreat.

Blinking rapidly, Eddie scowled and thumped his chest where the symbiote lay just under the surface of his skin.

“Look, I appreciate the sentiment, but you are gonna get us arrested if you start snapping at every shitfaced person who hits on me,” he grumbled as his voice cleared.

_“They can look but they cannot touch.”_

“Sorry I’m such a catch, V, you should’ve picked an uglier human,” Eddie replied, looking back to where Anne was laughing at something Dan was saying. At least they hadn’t missed anything important with the interruption.

 _“Such modesty,”_ Venom’s mental voice was dry, its amusement flaring against Eddie’s chest.

Eddie’s grin faltered as he spotted a man reclining in a chair just beyond where Anne and Dan sat. An expensive camera rested in the man’s lap as he peered down at the screen. He tapped a few buttons before angling the camera directly at Anne and smiling.

“And on today’s round of ‘Creep or Hitman,’” Eddie muttered under his breath, shifting in his beach chair to get a better view.

 _“More like ‘Appetizer or Main Course,’”_ Venom added darkly.

The man was big, taller and bulkier than Eddie with an Eastern European look to him. Aviator sunglasses hid his eyes and his neatly trimmed beard and goatee gave him an air of nobility. He sipped at his drink, some sort of bourbon to Eddie’s trained eye, and his lips twitched again as he looked at his camera.

Eddie had seen his type before. The rich playboy used to getting what he wanted at all times, no matter what the law or ethics said.

Bringing the camera up to his face, the man snapped another photo of Anne and Dan before finishing off his drink.

A subsonic growl had started deep in Eddie’s throat.

The man packed his camera carefully in his bag and stood, brushing sand off his ridiculous tiger striped swim trunks. He left the empty glass where it lay in the sand and shouldered his bag before carefully folding a small piece of paper and leaving it on the chair.

Turning, Tiger Shorts faced Eddie, eyes still hidden behind the aviators but Eddie could feel them trained on him like the sight of a gun. The man’s smile widened and he brought his hand up to tip an imaginary cap in Eddie’s direction before smoothly turning and disappearing into the crowd moving down the beach.

The growl had reached an almost dangerously loud volume and the ‘tattoos’ buzzed and blurred against Eddie’s chest.

_“He’s onto us, Eddie! He knows who we are!”_

A trap? Who was the real target – them or Anne? Eddie’s blood ran cold, not even the symbiote’s usual heat aiding to dispel the chill that ran down his spine.

“Babe, I think we fucked up,” he whispered, eyes straining to catch a glimpse of Tiger Shorts again. “I think this was a set up.”

_“He left something on that chair, something he wants us to find.”_

Eddie sat up, feeling Venom shift more of itself to create new tattoo patterns on Eddie’s back and calves. His Other had their back, literally and figuratively.

Anne and Dan remained oblivious to the game of cat and mouse being played out nearly in their laps. Dan’s smile was soft as he fed Anne a piece of fruit, one hand reaching out to brush her hair behind her ear.

One day they’d get their own happy ending. Maybe it wouldn’t be feeding Venom fruit on a gorgeous Waikiki beach – boy would the press have a field day with _that_ picture if they ever got one – but they’d get their peace, their time to just enjoy each other as two souls in love.

Today though, they’d have to play Tiger Shorts’ game.

Eddie ducked his head as he passed where Anne and Dan sat, moving with confidence and a spring in his step. Being an investigative reporter meant learning how to move as if you owned the area, looking as if you fit in perfectly to the outside world. Blending in had been a part of Eddie Brock’s repertoire long before Venom’s ability to camouflage had ever come into play.

Scooping the piece of paper up and dropping the travel guide in its place without breaking his stride, Eddie picked his way over to the beach house.

He shouldered his way into an open stall in the men’s room after the all clear from Venom. The stall door was cool against his bare skin and he let himself take a moment to breathe. Anne’s wedding seemed like a lifetime ago, the past twenty four hours blurring together like a whirlwind.

Venom materialized out of Eddie’s chest from just under his heart where Eddie could usually feel its presence sitting, radiating warmth and comfort to every nerve ending. It was the symbiote’s favourite spot lately, having migrated some time ago from being nearly constantly coiled near his stomach.

“What does the message say, Eddie?” Venom asked, the sibilance of its voice accentuated by the quiet whisper.

Eddie opened the paper as Venom snaked its way around behind his neck and rested its chin on his shoulder. The note was handwritten, the script bold and elegant.

_“My fellow Mad One: will you come burn with me, deadly spider, or will you yawn and let others take your place across the stars? The move is yours. – S. K.”_

“He speaks in riddles.”

“Not riddles,” Eddie said, the reference clicking in his head from his university days at ESU. “Kerouac. Who, yeah, I guess spoke in riddles a lot, but that’s from ‘On The Road.’ He wants us to find him.”

“Or Annie will take our place.”

Eddie swallowed heavily. “Yeah. The mad ones. ‘The ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time.’ He’s testing us, love. The break in at Annie’s, that was a set up; he’s been watching us for way longer than that.”

Venom’s teeth flashed brighter as a lip curled in a parody of a smile. Its tongue flicked against Eddie’s cheek before running over its fangs. Adrenaline coursed through Eddie’s veins, nearly causing his knees to buckle under the onslaught of energy and excitement coming from the symbiote.

“If it is a hunt he wants, then it is a hunt he will get.”

Tiger Shorts – or “S.K.” or whatever the fuck his name actually was - had left enough of a scent on the paper for Venom to pick up on and the symbiote focused on the trail like a bloodhound.

Bloodlust could only get you so far when paired with exhaustion, stress, and hunger though.

They stopped by a food truck serving fresh fish tacos and loaded up Eddie’s arms with as many as he could carry to fuel up, and Eddie sent a mental prayer that his credit card bill wouldn’t completely kill him when it came in.

Eddie stuffed his face with tacos as they walked, letting his Other control his legs to better follow Tiger Shorts’ scent. They had no real plan other than make sure they were the target instead of Anne, but Eddie was still nervous going in completely blind. They knew nothing about this guy other than he had a hard on for Beat generation poets and was probably batshit crazy.

That and he probably knew about all Venom’s weaknesses – both Klyntar and human.

 _“There doesn’t need to be a plan other than in what order we shall eat his organs,”_ Venom hissed. _“He cannot attack us in public; this resort is far too crowded.”_

“Mphat-“ Eddie swallowed the rest of his third taco. “That doesn’t mean he won’t kill Annie later on tonight to try to goad us into attacking him. If we find him now, we walk right into his trap, but we can’t wait either. It’s a no-win situation.”

_“We have faced worse odds. This is one human.”_

Eddie took a sip from a water bottle and glanced behind them to look at the hotel. “You don’t give us humans enough credit, love. If this guy is smart enough to lay a trap for us, he’s smart enough to do it prepared. He’ll know about your weaknesses from Dan’s file and if you don’t think he’s going to blast you out of me the first second he gets, you clearly haven’t learned that much about humans in the past year.”

Venom growled quietly but said nothing.

A plan was slowly starting to form in Eddie’s head. A shitty plan, but even a shitty plan was better than no plan.

 _“That is a stupid idea,”_ Venom groaned, latching onto the ideas as they formed in Eddie’s head. _“You have had many stupid ideas, but not one this stupid for a long time.”_

His Other didn’t want to move away from Anne. Its apprehension rolled over Eddie in waves, their joint frustration at the entire situation making it difficult to think clearly. Protecting Anne was priority – moving away from the hotel and the resort was counterproductive in the symbiote’s mind.

“This guy’s expecting us to stay with Annie,” Eddie pointed out. “He’s not expecting us to do anything but rush blindly in to save her. Look at where he’s put us so far; we’ve followed along with his breadcrumbs like idiots. He won’t be expecting this at all.”

_“We cannot eat his liver while streaming on the internet.”_

Eddie sighed. “Look, I want this guy dead too, especially with all the information he has on us, but we do this right and we can put enough heat on him that he won’t be able to set foot in public.”

_“Then we can get him alone and eat his liver.”_

Making a mental note to get Dan to double check his liver values when they got back to San Francisco, Eddie counted to ten and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sure. Yeah. Eat away. But _after_ he decides to move on and leave Annie alone.”

The plan was definitely a shaky one, and one that relied on the old Eddie Brock charm and public perception. Tiger Shorts went into the hunt expecting Venom and Venom’s particular fighting style; hopefully what he _wasn’t_ expecting was Eddie to take point and for The Brock Report to make a comeback.

Hopefully Honolulu would be as receptive to Eddie’s particular style of journalism as San Francisco had been.

Downing the rest of his water, Eddie blanched at the images running through his head of all the different ways the plan could go wrong. One particular scene of him being shot in the head on live television nearly had the fish tacos coming back up before his Other got ahold of itself and stopped the images and his upchuck reflex.

 _“I will not be able to protect you while you are streaming your story, Eddie,”_ Venom hissed, its weight heavy around Eddie’s heart.

They paused, Tiger Shorts’ scent trail leading off to a small villa. Eddie gently took control of his legs back and resolutely headed toward one of the tourist attractions – a small bluff overlooking the Waikiki beach.

“I know, just keep a look out for me. I need to know exactly when he’s within range and where,” Eddie replied. “You gotta trust me on the rest of this. I know how to get the public on my side and how to turn them onto a story, I’ve done it for years pretty fucking successfully.”

_“Until you met Drake.”_

“Yeah, well, this guy can’t shut me up on a livestream in a public place. This ain’t his own territory he can kick me out of, he’s as much of an outsider here as we are.”

Eddie fiddled with his phone as he approached the bluff, expertly weaving in and out among the tourists and making his way to the centre. The crowd was heavy and he garnered some lingering glances as he walked, men and women alike letting their eyes travel down his heavily tattooed torso.

Good. Eddie could use all the sex appeal and charm he could get if the plan was going to be a success.

The Brock Report still had a fairly significant social media following across major platforms – Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter – even with Eddie’s move to the written word. He wouldn’t need to have a long story, five minutes tops, and word should spread quickly about “The Mad One,” a mercenary aiming at young women on the resort for a sex trafficking ring.

If Tiger Shorts wanted Eddie to be ‘mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved,’ then he had better be prepared to deal with Eddie’s own brand of survival of the fittest.

Setting his phone to stream live across all his social media accounts, Eddie put on his patented Eddie Brock smirk and hit record.

“Good afternoon, Honolulu! Eddie Brock here bringing you a special Hawaiian edition of The Brock Report,” he said into the camera, holding it out in front of him. “I’m here at Waikiki Beach on the upper west side following up on a source from good ol’ San Francisco. Now, I know what you’re thinkin’: I could have just stayed home and gotten the story from the safety – and I use the term loosely – of my apartment, but I’ve owed my loyal followers a comeback of epic proportions and folks, this here I think is it.”

 _“People are taking notice, Eddie. No sign of our prey yet,”_ Venom commented.

“Back home I’ve been working on a sex trafficking story, and I kept coming up with dead ends where the young victims have been coming from,” Eddie continued, keeping his eyes on the camera and trusting Venom to watch their back. “An anonymous source tipped me off about Hawaii and I had to come see the situation in person. The police here seem to give as much of a shit as they do in San Francisco, which is probably why the bounty hunter I’ve been calling ‘The Mad One’ was spotted right here in Honolulu, just a five minute walk from the very spot I’m standing on.”

The crowd had grown, curious tourists pulling their phones out to record as Eddie’s voice grew louder and more confident. People muttered amongst themselves, exchanging suspicious glances with those around them and shuffling closer to where Eddie stood.

“The Mad One isn’t as clever as he likes to make himself out to be. He stalks his victims with his fancy camera for a while before following them back to their hotel rooms where he abducts them for what I’d imagine to be a fairly hefty sum. If anyone sees anything suspicious – say mysterious men with cameras and a taste in fashion that borders on safari print – please, contact your local authorities and do not let up. Lock your doors and windows, Honolulu, and I’m sorry San Francisco has brought its underbelly to you.”

_“Eddie, the woman from earlier, the one who tried to touch us.”_

Sure enough, the young woman from the beach was pushing her way toward the front of the gathered crowd.

“I saw him!” the woman exclaimed, stopping just outside of Eddie’s camera frame. “I saw the guy you’re talking about!”

Venom was restless under Eddie’s skin, growling softly. _“Don’t like her, Eddie.”_

Eddie wasn’t too fond of handsy drunk people either, but she _had_ been on the beach and she seemed willing to make his story that much more believable. Witnesses would ensure Tiger Shorts couldn’t just tell the authorities Eddie was making things up if they happened to get to him before Venom did.

“Did you notify the police of any suspicious activity you saw?” Eddie asked, shifting his phone to keep her face out of the livestream. As far as he knew, Tiger Shorts wouldn’t hesitate to go after her if he thought she was a threat to his little game.

The woman shook her head. “No, but I saw him taking pictures of a few women back on the resort beach. Weird looking guy: goatee, sunglasses, tiger striped shorts. Definitely was a creeper! I hid in the changing rooms until I saw him walking toward the villa outside The Equus resort.”

“Was anyone else with you, ma’am?”

“No, I actually didn’t know anything about this until I heard you talking,” the woman replied, regret audible in her voice. “I just got major creepy vibes from him and he’s the kind of creepy that stands out, y’know?”

 _“We can catch him near the villa,”_ Venom mused, practically vibrating with the anticipation of a fight. _“It was far less crowded over there too. Perfect place to for us to ambush.”_

Not that Venom was particularly good at the silent sneak attack, but if they could get the drop on Tiger Shorts before he had time to move against them – or Anne and Dan – it would be worth the property damage.

Eddie flashed the woman a grin before addressing the camera again. “And that’s exactly why I’m out here today, folks. No one wants to keep citizens informed and that’s how people get hurt. Be on your toes, Honolulu, and please report _anything_ suspicious, no matter how small, to your local authorities. Hopefully The Mad One will be found and justice will be done. I’m Eddie Brock, and this has been your special edition of The Brock Report.”

He ended his livestream and slipped his phone back into his pocket. Tiger Shorts undoubtedly would have been watching and the bait set. The ball was in his court now, but he couldn’t be as bold anymore, not with a decent portion of the resort being hypervigilant and reporting the smallest thing to the police.

Which, was another bonus side effect of his livestream – if the police were inundated with reports of suspicious activity, they’d be less likely to focus on possible Venom sightings.

Mentally soothing his grumbling Other, Eddie gestured to the woman to follow him as he started walking toward the villa. “That was a brave thing you did, speakin’ up like that,” he said with a smile. “I saw the same man, and he’s definitely a person of interest that I want to check out.”

His vision blurred as the woman wrapped an arm around his bicep and Eddie had to mentally bring up images of dumping the symbiote’s ‘secret’ stash of German chocolate bars in the garbage disposal before it cleared.

“Are you like, a private investigator or something?” the woman asked, oblivious to Eddie’s internal struggle.

“Nah,” Eddie replied, shaking his head. “Just your friendly neighbourhood reporter tryin’ to make sure bad guys don’t slip through the cracks, y’know? There’s a lot of power in media, more than people give us journalists credit for.”

She smiled up at him and Venom’s possessive hiss rattled in Eddie’s brain. “I can dig that, definitely. Superman was a journalist, after all.” Her gaze travelled down Eddie’s chest. “And you’re _much_ better looking than Clark Kent.”

“Superman wouldn’t have been half the journalist without his powers,” he said with a wink. “We’ve got better superheroes in the real world, both with powers and without.”

_“Eddie…”_

Eddie clenched his jaw, shoving Venom firmly back down. They needed to stay on target – and ditch their flirty companion as soon as possible.

Carefully extricating his arm from her grasp, Eddie dug his notebook out of the pocket of his shorts and slid the pen out from the binding. “I’ll tell you what though, if you can point me in the direction of where The Mad One went off to, I’ll make sure you get full credit in my expose when this guy gets arrested – which, hopefully will happen here in Honolulu.”

The woman smiled coyly, tongue flicking out to lick her lips. She reached for Eddie’s pen and notebook, scribbling down a number and the initials “F.B” with a heart around them. “I think I can do that,” she agreed. “Just keep my full name out of it. Y’know, for safety in case he gets out. But _you_ can call me any time, day or night, Mr. Brock.”

 _“Oh we will pay her a visit, all right,”_ the symbiote snarled as it projected colourful images of the woman eviscerated by moonlight.

Eddie’s stomach gurgled, whether from his own nausea or Venom’s bloodthirst, he wasn’t sure.

“I’ll make sure you stay safe,” Eddie reassured her as he fought back his visceral reaction to his Other’s gorier fantasies.

“That’s what I like to hear,” the woman replied. She handed him back the notebook and pen as they turned down the street where Venom had left the scent trail. “Last night was the first time I saw him and he was coming out of that building over there. Seeing him again on the beach taking pictures of women…” She shivered. “There’s something wrong with him.”

Eddie squinted in the sun where she was pointing. “The music store?”

“Yeah, it was super late, that’s why I thought it was weird.”

_“He has to be set up there, Eddie. He can use the sound systems against us.”_

“Definitely,” Eddie agreed. There was no way they could go into that building, not with Tiger Shorts’ probable knowledge. The store choice couldn’t be a coincidence.

Lingering at the crosswalk, Eddie frowned and bit the inside of his lip anxiously. The entire plan hinged on him being able to out think his opponent – what was the next expected step?

Just behind the music store was an empty building with a real estate sign in the window. The weather-beaten panels were in desperate need of a paint job, a stark contrast to the relatively well-kept storefronts along the street.

_“Perfect place for an ambush. The music store must be a red herring.”_

“Or is that what he wants us to think?” Eddie murmured, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet. Was he watching both buildings? Were both rigged to be anti-symbiote? Or was Eddie overthinking?

“What did you say?” the woman asked, looking at him curiously.

He really needed to get a fucking Bluetooth or something. “Nothing, sorry. Talkin’ to myself,” he replied dismissively. “Reporter habit.”

Running a hand through his hair, he sighed in frustration. At the very least, the music store had to be watched, even if Tiger Shorts were set up remotely, which meant Eddie was expected to avoid it entirely and go straight for the empty building.

But what if he went to both places?

 _“I like this plan,”_ Venom purred.

Eddie turned to the woman. She had turned out to be an excellent source so far, and hopefully would make a decent lookout. “I’ve got an idea, you said he definitely came out of here last night, right?”

“Yeah, a little after eleven maybe?”

“I’m going to go in and ask the employees some questions, can you go stand near that group over there and keep an eye on the empty building?” Eddie asked. “I should be able to see you out the window, just raise your hand like you’re waving to someone on the other side of the street if you see anything weird.”

The woman nodded enthusiastically. “Totally. This is so cool, some real private eye shit!”

“Great, if I’m more than ten minutes, call the cops, okay?”

Giving Eddie a thumbs up, the woman sauntered over to the group gathered on the street corner and pulled her phone out. She quickly glanced behind her and winked at Eddie.

“Okay, Escape Plan C in place, time to go gear up,” Eddie muttered under his breath.

_“And eat some heads.”_

Eddie pushed the door to the music shop open and quickly took stock of the inventory. Most of the room was taken up by various displays – guitars, keyboards, sound systems, and a set of drums in the corner – and the teenage employee barely looked up as he entered.

 _“Two humans, one must be in the back room. Not Tiger Shorts. He has been here but his scent is not fresh,”_ his Other rumbled, one thin tendril sneaking its way across the floor toward the door at the rear of the building.

Walking up to the counter, Eddie smiled disarmingly at the kid and pushed his sunglasses up on his head. “Hey there, I was wondering if you could recommend a pair of headphones for me? Looking for as much noise cancellation as possible – I get migraines really easily and had a rough time with the plane, y’know?”

The kid sighed and flipped a page of his comic book. “Right behind you, top shelf to your left. They’ll shut out just about everything and make you pretty deaf while you’re wearing them. If you want to have any money left on your vacation, I’d get the ones on the third shelf.”

_“All clear, Eddie. He is not here.”_

Eddie picked Venom back up as he turned to the wall of headphones. The top shelf ones made his heart momentarily skip as he checked the price.

“Is there a huge difference between the two?” he asked, picking up one of each and reading over the boxes.

“You kinda get what you pay for with that stuff.”

Right. Great. Ramen noodles for the next couple months it was.

Wincing as he paid for the headphones, Eddie glanced out the window. His unlikely partner was still standing at the corner, laughing – or pretending to laugh – into her phone. Her body was angled toward the empty building, but nothing about her body language screamed ‘I’m keeping a lookout.’

Maybe she deserved a bit more credit than he originally had thought after all.

She smiled brightly at him as he exited the store, much to Venom’s irritation. The symbiote’s protests at her presence had at least faded to vague, dark images and an undercurrent of possessiveness, but it was keeping itself under control.

“Any answers?” she asked, tucking her phone back into her purse.

Eddie flipped his sunglasses back down. “Yeah, a few.” Confirmation that his source had been correct and that the music store wasn’t the current trap was good information to have. He held up the bag with the headphones. “Plus a Christmas present. Nothing out here, I’m guessing?”

“No, I don’t think anyone’s in that building.”

“Perfect, I’m going to stake out in there and see what I can get,” Eddie said. He smiled at her and held out his hand. “You’ve been a huge help, I can’t thank you enough. You ever wanna get into journalism, you put me down as a reference, okay? My name’s still got some mileage in a few cities.”

She smiled and shook his hand, her fingers lingering in his for longer than they should. “It’s been a _pleasure_ , Mr. Brock,” she purred before giving him a small wave and turning back down the street toward the resort.

 _“About time,”_ Venom huffed, irritation pricking at Eddie’s skin. _“Hopefully these will cancel out enough of his trap if he manages to spring it. I will hold us together long enough to knock him out or break the sound system.”_

“Hopefully he won’t be expecting us to barge right in,” Eddie replied, ripping open the packaging and freeing the headphones. “He’s gotta know we know it’s a trap, so hopefully he’ll think we’ll wait for him to return to the music store.”

_“His scent was all over the entire store; old, but not very. If he doesn’t know we’ve been in there he will soon enough. The store had cameras in every corner.”_

“That’s what I’m banking on,” Eddie whispered, settling the headphones over his ears.

The effect was instant. The kid’s customer service may not have been great, but his recommendations were spot on. As soon as Eddie’s ears were covered, it was as if he were completely deaf. Not even the slightest noise broke through and it threw him off for a moment.

_“We will have to send a thank you note to Stark Industries.”_

_“Yeah, no shit,”_ Eddie sent back, not trusting himself to not overcompensate and yell. Mental communication was still weird for him when he was in the driver’s seat, but he needed to get used to it.

He looked over at the still seemingly empty building and took a deep breath, feeling the adrenaline begin to course through his veins at their joint reaction to an impending fight.

_“Ready, love?”_

_“Yes, we are.”_

Against Eddie’s skin, the false tattoos shifted and ran together as Eddie strode over to the building. He let himself fall back into Venom’s headspace, their minds merging as one, the thrill of the hunt sending goosebumps down their exposed human flesh.

They opened the door, turning the handle with enough force to snap the lock holding it in place. Their tongue flicked out to scent the air and their vision shifted from human to symbiote to scan for movement and heat signatures.

Nothing? Tiger Shorts’ scent was heavy in the air, far more recent than in the music store. Had they just missed him?

A low growl vibrated in their chest and their vision shifted back to human once more. Venom’s claws extended as they spotted the pristine sound system set up against the far wall.

The pain hit them before the sound even registered in their mind. They screeched in agony, the pain of being separated just as terrible as the sonic blast itself. The symbiote’s entire being down to the molecules buzzed and split, its mental scream piercing through Eddie’s brain like a knife before it was ripped free from Eddie’s flesh.

Falling to his knees, Eddie gaped in confusion at the still silent sound system. Where had that noise come from? He stretched out his hand, trying to find where his Other had fallen, the pain in his head making it difficult to focus.

Another sonic shriek pierced through his headphones. Crying out in pain, Eddie instinctively reached up to press the headphones closer, to block out the awful noise. His fingers came away wet with blood and he stared numbly at them in shock.

The last thing he saw was the woman’s cocky smirk before something heavy smashed into his skull and the world went black.

“Your creativity is admirable, Brock.”

Eddie groaned, immediately regretting opening his eyes as the bright artificial lighting pierced through his aching head. He squeezed his eyes shut and pushed himself up on wobbly arms that threatened to give out. He felt hazy, like he was barely treading water in his own mind.

“You can take all the time you need to get up, you yourself are in no direct danger, but do remember: you are still participating in my hunt.”

“V,” Eddie slurred, reaching mentally for where Venom’s presence typically rested. Why was he so cold? Why wasn’t his Other responding?

He managed to get both knees underneath him and he shakily sat up, his mind impossibly quiet as the fog began to slowly clear. The last time his mind had been so silent had been…

Rage filled him, blood pounding in his ears and his vision tunnelling on the man who stood before him. Lips curling into an instinctive snarl, he lunged at the man.

“Where is it?!” Eddie roared. “What did you do to it?”

Almost casually, the man backhanded Eddie into the far wall. “None of that,” he said, a slight eastern European accent colouring his voice. “We can discuss this like men.”

Fresh blood dripped into Eddie’s eye and he gasped as he tried to catch his breath. The man – Tiger Shorts, though he had changed into cargo shorts and a polo with a vest of what appeared to be a skinned lion’s mane – was far stronger than any human should be. Did he have a symbiote? He had thought the remaining two at the Life Foundation had perished but he never had any actual confirmation on it.

“My name is Sergei Kravinoff,” the man continued, picking up a rifle from the table behind him and wiping the barrel down with a rag. “I have been studying you for some time now, Brock, you and your alien. It is a fascinating creature really, that such a small thing can cause so much damage.”

Eddie’s hands trembled as he struggled once again to get to his feet. He leaned against the wall for support as his vision swam. “Where is it,” he bit out. “I don’t give a fuck who you are. Where’s Venom?”

Kravinoff raised a sculpted eyebrow. “Venom? Ah, yes, that is what you call your creature. It is unlike any other big game I have hunted; so weak when taken out of its natural environment – you, in this case, Brock.”

He stepped aside to reveal a glass box, not much bigger than a small fishtank, on the table. Patting the glass, Kravinoff smiled as the symbiote within sluggishly heaved itself toward the vibration.

Eddie’s heart caught in his throat at the sight of his Other. Blind and deaf in its natural state, the symbiote wasn’t able to survive for long in Earth’s atmosphere without a host, and by the looks of things, time was running out.

“It was quite the feisty thing at first. Shame it was no real challenge once my colleague managed to separate it from you.”

“Let it go,” Eddie said hoarsely, fear rooting him to the spot.

Kravinoff smiled, like how one would indulge a child asking for something ridiculous. “I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible, Brock. I hunt for sport and I keep a trophy of every successful hunt. This creature will be quite the centrepiece to my display room; my first extra-terrestrial species.”

Swallowing heavily, Eddie fought back his rising panic. If his Other died… the thought was too unbearable. He already felt hollow, empty without its presence. There was no way he could live without it.

“You though, you’re also quite fascinating to me, Brock,” Kravinoff said, walking up to Eddie and taking his chin in his hand. He turned his head this way and that, examining him as if he were livestock. “You’re a coward, from everything I’ve managed to find on you. You hide behind your particular brand of journalism – nice touch at the resort, by the way – and your wit, but when it comes down to it, you’re nothing. You rely on this creature to do your fighting for you.”

“You know nothing about us,” Eddie snapped, meeting Kravinoff’s eyes. He spat a mouthful of blood and saliva into Kravinoff’s face and was rewarded with a curse and another backhand.

A second figure stepped into view as Eddie gasped and groaned on the floor. She had changed her clothing from earlier, but her flirtatious smirk was still in place as she offered a hand to help Eddie up.

He recoiled from her touch, scooting backward until he hit the wall. “You fucking bitch. You played us,” he growled, voice breaking on the last word.

She shrugged and walked back to the table, peering down at the now motionless black shape. “Nothing personal, Eddie. I have a particular talent that drew Mr. Kravinoff to me and he pays very well.”

Kravinoff smiled thinly at her. “Ah, yes, you’ve met dear Frances. We call her ‘Shriek’ – I’m sure you can figure out why. Your headphones were a creative thought, but no match for a mutant, I’m afraid. I do hope you’ve kept your receipt.”

“Maybe I like the quiet,” Eddie sneered.

“I certainly hope so. You’ll be experiencing a lot of it without your alien, I’d imagine. How _is_ that silence, by the way? It much be excruciating for you. To be completely bonded in every way imaginable and then to have it torn from you…”

“Shut up.”

Kravinoff held up his hands. “I apologize. I’m being a poor host.”

He turned back to the table and selected a pistol. He examined it thoughtfully before picking up a silencer and attaching it to the barrel.

“For all your flaws, Brock, you’re an extremely intelligent and educated man and I respect that. Tell me, have you read ‘The Most Dangerous Game?’”

Eddie’s mind raced as he eyed the gun in Kravinoff’s hands. Of course he had read the short story, what was the lunatic getting at? He hauled himself to his feet for the third time. If he was going to die, he wasn’t going to give his killer the satisfaction of having him on his knees.

“Richard Connell,” Eddie replied, voice coming out stronger than he expected. “One of the classics. I thought Beat poetry was more your thing? Maybe some Ginsberg to go with your Kerouac?”

Kravinoff smiled and wagged a finger at Eddie. “See? A smart man, despite all evidence to the contrary. Under different circumstances I’d offer you a drink and discuss the classics.”

“What a shame.”

Still smiling, Kravinoff sauntered forward, tapping the barrel of the pistol against his thigh. “I normally keep my hunting to animals, however, Connell had it right with humans being the most dangerous animal of all. When I saw reports of you, of the monstrous vigilante ‘Venom,’ I was highly intrigued. What sort of creature was this? Imagine my shock to learn you were not a mutant or alien yourself, just a simple washed up journalist with a questionable history.”

Eddie swallowed heavily, eyes never leaving the gun. “So what? You gonna let me loose in Hawaii and hunt me down like a rhino or something?” It wouldn’t be much of a challenge. Eddie’s legs felt like they were going to fall off.

Kravinoff laughed and shook his head. “No, of course not! Humans require a different kind of challenge. We react on instinct like any other animal, of course, but we also have morality, ethics, social norms and the like to take into consideration.”

He held up the pistol. “I’m going to give you an offer, Brock, and I believe I know how this will play out. I’ve read every piece you have published, watched every video you’ve made. You have a strong sense of right and wrong. Almost _too_ strong. You don’t operate in shades of grey, do you? You seem to be the champion of the innocent and downtrodden in society and as Venom you have been going after what you consider to be evil people, correct?”

Eddie clenched his jaw and said nothing.

“Where do _you_ fall under that spectrum, Brock? Not your alien, but you yourself. You become a monster and eat your fellow man, you cause the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage and for what? You seem to relish being in the spotlight, so is it _really_ about saving the innocent? Or is it to feed your ego and tell yourself you’re some kind of super hero?”

Taking a shaky step toward Kravinoff, Eddie squared his shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes. His Other was as good as dead and Eddie couldn’t fight a normal human, much less two superhumans, in his current state. Death was preferable to living alone in his head. “Are you planning on psychoanalyzing me or killing me? Just fuckin’ shoot me already. I’ve already had a lunatic try to talk me to death once before.”

Kravinoff’s smile grew colder. “As I said, I have an offer for you,” he said. Flipping the pistol, he handed it to Eddie. “Go on, take it; it’s loaded, but Shriek here will burst your eardrums before you can get a shot off if you try to aim it at me.”

Dumbly, Eddie took the pistol and stared down at it. He had only fired a gun once before, when his father had taken him to the range as a young teenager. _“Every man needs to know how to shoot a gun, Edward.”_ Words of wisdom from Carl Brock, not that he’d be particularly proud of his son – or that he ever was.

“You have two options, Brock, and only one of which gets you out alive,” Kravinoff said, taking a step backward. “Your first option is to use the gun on yourself. You wish to protect innocents, yes? You’d be simply taking out yet another monster plaguing the streets. Your second option…”

His arm shot out almost faster than Eddie could register and grabbed Shriek by the throat. She struggled against him, eyes going wide with shock. Her mouth opened but she couldn’t manage more than a strangled whimper.

“Your second option is to kill dear Shriek here. She meets your code as well – quite the rap sheet on her.”

“Jesus,” Eddie whispered, nausea coiling in his stomach. “I can’t… I can’t kill someone in cold blood; I’m not a fuckin’ _murderer_ , you sick son of a bitch.”

Kravinoff shrugged nonchalantly. “You do have a choice here, but there are consequences to both. Should you decide to martyr yourself, you will avoid directly taking an innocent life; however, I will ensure dear Dr. and Mrs. Lewis do not make it home from their honeymoon alive.”

Eddie’s blood ran cold and he nearly dropped the pistol. Licking his lips, he avoided looking at Shriek. “And if I kill her? What happens then?”

“I will let you go free, along with the good doctor and his wife. Provided you don’t make life difficult for me, you’ll never see or hear from me again.”

“And my symbiote?” Eddie asked, his palms sweating against the pistol’s grip. The gun felt even heavier in his hand and he desperately wanted to throw it aside.

“This isn’t a deal for negotiation, Brock,” Kravinoff said firmly. “Even if I kept the remains for my trophy room, just a small portion of the alien should be enough to trade for access into Wakanda. Can you imagine hunting there? It would truly be the height of sport!”

Bile rose in Eddie’s throat. “You’re fucking insane.”

Kravinoff shook Shriek like a ragdoll, making her cry out in pain. “You will make a decision!” he snapped. “And you will do it quickly or I will start breaking every bone in this woman’s body.”

Tightening his grip on the pistol, Eddie drew in a trembling breath and squeezed his eyes shut. He shifted from foot to foot, pressing the heel of his free hand against his forehead. He couldn’t make decisions like this – who in their right mind could?

He _needed_ his Other. What would Venom do? Kravinoff was stronger and faster than Eddie, there was no way to beat him in a fight. If he made a dash for the tank, Kravinoff would likely torture both him and Shriek in response.

And there was no guarantee the symbiote itself was even still alive.

Letting out a desperate whine, Eddie stared at the gun in his hand, mind racing.

“I need an answer, Brock.”

“The only people for me are the mad ones; the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time,” Eddie whispered, the words to Kerouac’s poem coming unbidden to his mind. “The ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”

And all of a sudden, he knew.

Kravinoff tilted his head curiously as Eddie looked back up and met Shriek’s eyes. He held her gaze for a moment before whispering a pained “I’m sorry.”

He fired.

Shriek’s body collapsed to the floor, Kravinoff releasing her and jumping backward as the back of her head exploded with blood and brain matter.

“As I predicted,” Kravinoff mused, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbing at the blood on his face. “You’re no better than the rest of them, Brock. Killing to save the people _you_ care about, rather than the real monsters that haunt –“

Eddie fired twice more, two shots to the centre of Kravinoff’s chest. His hands shook as he lowered the gun and stepped forward, keeping just out of Kravinoff’s reach as the man fell to the dusty warehouse floor.

Carl Brock had never been proud of his son, but he _had_ been impressed with Eddie’s natural accuracy.

Crouching in front of the gasping Kravinoff, Eddie met the dying man’s eyes. “You wanted a mad one? You got one.”

He stepped gingerly over Kravinoff’s body, taking care to avert his eyes from Shriek’s still form. Dancing around the heavier blood spatter, Eddie reached the table and undid the lid of the tank with unsteady hands.

Venom slowly melted into him the moment their skin touched. His Other was weak, barely conscious from absorbing Earth’s toxic atmosphere for too long without a host. It immediately weaved itself through Eddie’s brain, sending _love_ and _safe_ and more emotions than Eddie had the mental energy to even comprehend.

His stomach heaved as the symbiote’s ravenous hunger met his nausea and revulsion and all of a sudden the scent of blood and gore was too much. Falling to his knees, Eddie threw up, his arms shaking violently in the aftermath of his adrenaline rush.

_“Eddie.”_

Gasping for breath, Eddie shuddered and threw up once more.

_“Did the right thing, Eddie.”_

Did he? Sure he blurred enough lines when it came to Venom’s killing, but the symbiote wasn’t human and couldn’t be held to human standards. That was simple predator and prey. Man ate cow, symbiote ate man.

He, Eddie, had just killed two people, one of them in cold blood.

Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, Eddie pulled himself to his feet. He moved mechanically, still in control of his own body but running on autopilot. They still had to ensure Anne and Dan remained safe and then they could go home and rest.

_“Hash browns, Eddie, and chocolate McFlurry.”_

Hysterical laughter bubbled in Eddie’s throat. The mere thought of food made his stomach churn, but his Other was nothing if not practical: both foods were high in phenethylamine and it needed to regain its strength quickly if Eddie wanted to rest.

It was offering him an out. Venom was very aware of the fresh corpses laid out like a symbiote buffet, the brains rich in nutritious chemicals it required to thrive, but instead it continued to send soothing, pleasant images of its favourite human foods at Eddie.

“Yeah,” Eddie rasped, coughing into his hand and clearing his throat. “Let’s get freshened up and we can hit McDonald’s after we check on Annie.”

_“Love you, Eddie.”_

Eddie’s heart twisted at the words and he struggled to hold himself together. He had almost lost it. The person who meant the most to him in the world. He would have never heard those words again.

“Love you too, sweetheart. More than anything.”

“Was that not good, Eddie?”

Eddie stirred and stretched, groaning at the delicious burn in his muscles. “Whazzat?”

Venom had coiled its physical form around him, its head resting on Eddie’s bare chest. Its large eyes were slightly narrowed, the tips of its teeth barely visible as it studied him quizzically. It basked in the flood of chemicals Eddie’s brain was currently floating in, but an undercurrent of worry cut through the afterglow.

“Your orgasm. It _felt_ good, you seemed very satisfied, but your mind is not here with us.”

It wasn’t wrong. Eddie hadn’t been fully mentally present since they had left Hawaii two days previous. He had slept for nearly twenty hours, staying awake only to get them through security – thankfully without incident this time – and then to set Mr. Belvedere up in the apartment after Venom brought them to Mrs. Chen’s.

He had felt like a zombie, with Venom controlling most of his body and stumbling through an awkward conversation with Mrs. Chen about the cat. The events of the past few days were hazy in his mind, the only things viscerally clear were the image of his Other trapped and dying in the glass tank and the acrid scent of blood heavy in the air.

Those things would never be erased from his mind.

“I’m sorry, love,” he murmured, voice still rough from his previous arousal. “That was very good – hell that was one of the best we’ve had – I’m just… still processing everything, I guess.”

The symbiote nosed its face under Eddie’s chin, nuzzling his throat with a soft hum. “The movies on Netflix indicate sexual intercourse after a traumatic experience is life affirming,” it said lazily, still high on the rush of dopamine.

A smile twisted at Eddie’s lips. “You been gettin’ relationship tips from Netflix?”

“Better than using your past experiences, that’s for sure.”

“Oh fuck you.” Eddie shoved Venom’s largest mass, watching with amusement as it gave way around his hand before resettling itself firmly round his waist.

A hint of razor sharp teeth pricked at Eddie’s pulse point. “I believe I fucked you, if we are keeping track.”

Smirking, Eddie rolled onto his side, letting his Other spoon up behind him, a solid comforting weight at his back.

Banter was good. Banter was normal. Banter let him know they were still alive. The sex had been _amazing_ , that Eddie hadn’t lied about. He was able to truly become One with his Other, their minds and bodies blending together so smoothly that he hadn’t been able to tell which were his sensations and which were Venom’s. The symbiote had caught on quickly to the concept of sex for pleasure after experiencing Eddie’s, and there was something to be said for a partner whose pleasure was derived entirely from your own.

But even great sex couldn’t entirely squash the guilt Eddie felt.

Venom let its head snake around Eddie’s neck to rest on the pillow and pressed its forehead against Eddie’s. “We are not monsters for killing, Eddie. Killing is a necessity in the universe.”

Eddie said nothing, letting the shame and revulsion at his own actions speak instead.

“Are we monsters for killing bad people?”

“No, love, no. That’s just… that’s different. You need to eat and those people deserve to be eaten, y’know?”

Venom tilted its head and Eddie could feel it sifting through his memories. Unbidden, the image of Shriek’s eyes widening as they met Eddie’s just before he shot her came to the forefront of his mind.

 _“Ah. It is her you have guilt over,”_ Venom’s mental voice rumbled, a soothing balm to the horrific images. _“Kravinoff deserved death. The woman also betrayed us and set us up to be trapped from the start. She had to know what Kravinoff was planning on doing to Annie and Dan.”_

Did she? How much of Kravinoff’s real plan had she been aware of? “There might have been another way, that’s all I’m sayin’,” Eddie replied, shifting uncomfortably under Venom’s unblinking gaze.

 _“There was no other way. I was close to death. Kravinoff would have killed you before you could do anything else and then he would have killed others.”_ Venom lightly touched its snout to Eddie’s nose, tongue flicking out across Eddie’s cheek. _“You acted heroically, Eddie. You made the difficult decisions on your own. You did what had to be done.”_

Warmth filled him and Eddie sucked in a breath at the wave of pure love and adoration that pushed its way into his mind. He shut his eyes, feeling his Other sink into his skin and set every nerve alight.

Venom shared its memories of the night with him, the trauma and terror it experienced at being blasted from Eddie’s body. Separation was an excruciatingly painful experience for the symbiote, and to be forcibly separated from its perfect host, its soulmate… Eddie had no idea how badly it had been affected.

Then the air on its skin suddenly stopped hurting as it had felt Eddie’s warmth, his scent filling its pores and for one of the first times in its very long life, Venom had felt joy.

_“Saved us twice now, Eddie. Once from Drake’s lab, once from Kravinoff. Both times you did so at the risk of everything you hold dear. Is that not what a super hero does?”_

Eddie let out a shuddering breath as he came back to himself. He _had_ saved Venom and guaranteed Anne and Dan’s safety – possibly the safety of countless other innocents by taking out Kravinoff. Shriek had been collateral damage and she had chosen her own fate, despite being double crossed by her partner in the end.

It didn’t resolve Eddie’s guilt over taking human lives, but some of the weight on his soul eased a bit. Maybe that weight would never fully lift. Maybe more would be added, but that was a risk Eddie was going to have to take.

The costs of being a super hero. The costs of being a mad one.

Eddie tightened his arms around the symbiote, feeling it pulse happily and wind its way more firmly around him. Together they could be the hero they wanted to be.

“Remind me to do somethin’ special for our anniversary tomorrow,” Eddie said after a moment.

_“Sushi date with ice cream after. We can watch the sunrise over the harbour.”_

“Mmm, like that idea. But, uh, my credit cards are kinda shot after two plane tickets. Maybe we get ice cream first and you can hunt as much fresh fish as you want?” He wasn’t sure if he was ready to dive back into hunting down criminals, so the credit card bills would have to wait.

_“That is acceptable. Then we can watch more episodes of Chopped when we get home.”_

“Y’know anniversaries are supposed to be romantic right?”

Venom huffed. _“You forgot our anniversary, I did not. That means we watch Chopped and if you are lucky, we can explore more traditional human romance before dinner.”_

“And they say romance is dead.”

Yeah. Eddie could take those risks. Together, they were certainly mad enough.

**Author's Note:**

> AhumokIo's art masterpost: [here](http://1impulsivefloweruniverse.tumblr.com/post/185057967404/for-the-fic-the-mad-ones-in-the-symbrock-big-bang)
> 
> Dragonpressgraphics' art masterpost: [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/18878767)


End file.
